Brenda Chamberlain

Brenda Chamberlain (1912-1971) was a writer and painter. She was born and raised in Bangor, Caernarfonshire, and privately educated.
From 1931 she studied art at the Royal Academy in London. In 1936 she moved to Llanllechid, near Bethesda, Caernarfonshire, after marrying the artist John Petts (1914-1991); together they set up the Caseg Press, producing postcards and bookplates.
During World War Two, she wrote poetry, and created the Caseg Broadsheets with her husband and Alun Lewis (1915-1944). The marriage ended in 1946. She lived briefly in Germany before moving to Bardsey Island where she lived until 1961, both writing and painting. She then went to the Greek island of Hydra, before returning, in 1967, to Bangor where she died in 1971.
Her most important published works are:
The Green Heart (lyrics and love-poems, 1958),
Tide-Race (prose, concerning her time on Bardsey, 1962),
The Water-Castle (her only novel, 1964),
A Rope of Vines (a journal of her time on Hydra, 1965),
Poems With Drawings (1969), and
Alun Lewis and the Making of the Caseg Broadsheets (1969).
She corresponded with Father J. Michael Reakes-Williams (1930-1997) and Karl von Laer of Löhne, West Germany (fl. 1952-1971).
Source: [url=http://www.archivesnetworkwales.info/cgi-bin/anw/fulldesc_nofr?inst_id=1&coll_id=82&expand=]ArchivesNetworkWales [/url]